


Let's Do Grown-Up Stuff

by AlexKingOfTheDamned, swimsalot



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: M/M, Marriage Proposal, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, War Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 14:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1608602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexKingOfTheDamned/pseuds/AlexKingOfTheDamned, https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimsalot/pseuds/swimsalot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Very self-indulgent Soldier/Spy modern day AU in which Spy is still a spy and Soldier is still a soldier and it's just about time they got married, already.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Do Grown-Up Stuff

**Author's Note:**

> This was written when I needed fluff that could create cavities. 
> 
> I'm sorry if it's a little hard to follow. It's technically an extension of a college AU that I've never actually written out, takes place well after they've graduated, but since it's not a COLLEGE au anymore it's more just a modern-day AU. 
> 
> The one thing that bothers me most about AU's is when people don't really put the effort in to keep the characters true to their originals. If you're gonna do a TF2 mermaid AU for instance and you just put them under the ocean and they're all happy and gay and swim around and shit it's not really TF2 anymore. So this was my attempt to create an AU, but still honor the original characters. Rant over, I'm sorry. 
> 
> I'm also sorry if you don't approve of Spy's name, but considering it's a modern day AU it wouldn't really be appropriate to call him "spy" the whole time.

Two years.

 

It wasn’t the longest tour of duty in the history of the army. Two years ago, Captain Jane Doe would have said he wanted to serve for the rest of his life, until he was too old to continue, or he died in the line of duty, whichever came first.

 

He sits back in the airplane seat with a sigh, and turns his head to look out the small window. It’s cloudy outside, impossible to tell they’re even moving. His chest feels cold and tight, like there’s something inside trying to get out.

 

Honorable discharge, they call it. There’s nothing honorable about being told you aren’t fit for duty, he thinks. He looks down at the cast on his leg, signed from ankle to thigh in the two-dozen names of his squadmates.

 

GET BETTER pinkie xxx

at least it wasnt yo head – the beef

Best wishes, Lorcan

Keep up the good work “maggot” - toast

how white you think your leg gonna be when they crack this thing off? – yucko

dont forget to do your situps, iron tummy – guppy

Good luck with the leg, say hello to secret agent barbie for me! – Pearl

 

He can’t even read all of them from this angle. The good feelings and happy words and half-attempted jokes do very little to soften the sight of the big ugly white leech on his leg. He slips his pocket watch out of his coat and clicks it open to look at the small photograph of his “secret agent barbie” cut in a circle so it would fit directly into the lid of the clock.

 

The picture is cold on his fingertip, nothing like the skin of his lover Marion. Lover might sound too loose, but boyfriend doesn’t sound nearly serious enough. Nobody has a “boyfriend” for seven years. Soulmate sound way too hippie. He hopes, soon, he can call him fiancé.

 

He cracks open the navy blue velvet ring box with a sigh, and straightens the gold band so the square sapphire sits at the top, flanked by four small diamonds on either side. It hadn’t been cheap, but he made a promise to himself as he was buying it that he wouldn’t tell Marion how much it cost no matter how much he asked.

 

The box closes with a snap and he stuffs it back in the pocket of his fatigues. He hopes Marion will like it. He told the soldier years ago that he’s always preferred gold rings. He didn’t want to ask him if that applied to engagement rings, too, because that was just too obvious, and he is a man of strategy thank you very much.

 

Seven years is long enough to wait before asking someone to marry you, he hopes. He knows he could spend the rest of his life with Marion, at least. They met in college, back when the slightly snooty, withdrawn Frenchman was nothing but a model. Before that modeling career became a cover for his work with the CIA to quietly cut off the head of the human trafficking monster. He wishes his lover would go back to just being a model, back when he did nothing but look pretty all day and his life was never in danger. He knows it’s hypocritical considering he’s currently sitting on a military aircraft being shipped home for stepping on a landmine and came close to losing his leg altogether and he got shot at most days, but at the same time he knows that what Marion does is incredibly important and he saves the lives of countless people. He doesn’t do it in the same way Jane does, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t get it.

 

They moved in together after only a year of dating, but Jane’s parents left him a house that was much too big and empty and he’d expected he would fill it with dogs, not a French guy. He didn’t think about it at the time, he just wanted the company and he felt good when he was around Marion. He didn’t think it would get so serious. He thought the Frenchman would get tired of him. Most people don’t have the patience for his brand of enthusiasm for life.

 

He’s not insecure though, so you can take that namby-pamby nonsense and shove it up your nose. He’s just cautious. Marion wouldn’t have stuck around this long if he didn’t at least like Jane, but they could have been together for a hundred years and he still would have been nervous to ask him to marry him.

 

The time has to be right. He’ll wait until just the right moment to ask him. Marion is a sucker for romance and Jane might not be able to dance with him now the way he likes, but he can romance his “hot cow-tour” pants right off anyway. He’ll get candles and flower and he’ll pay someone to play the violin or whatever French people play and he’ll go down on one knee – wait. Shit.

 

His knee is gone. Replaced by a bunch of metal plates and screws and poles. His kneecap and half his tibia were shattered beyond repair, his fibula cracked in three places, and his foot could barely be saved. He wasn’t even the one who stepped on it. Liam Peterson stepped on it. He’d barely been in service for three weeks when the faint “beep” caught everyone’s ears in enemy territory. He froze in place, the instant he took his weight off it, he knew it would blow.

 

At least Jane was regarded a hero. He stepped on the mine to keep the younger man intact. He had to get home to his mama. Jane’s pretty sure he’s going to have nightmares about diving off that mine for dear life. He was lucky it had been crudely made with a minor spray. He was lucky. He hates that word now.

 

==

 

Marion is late. Very late. Almost half an hour late by the time he gets to the military airport. It didn’t help that customs took forever to get through. They had to check and re-check his ID and confirm that he was in a serious relationship with the Captain before they let him in. He had to leave his butterfly knife at the door despite being positively ID’d as a CIA agent and he was let in after twenty minutes of hemming and hawing. It wasn't his fault of course. If his boss hadn’t forced him to stay late and do extra paperwork and of course they _had_ to take new headshots for his next undercover job, he would have gotten there on time. Jane is going to love this one when he tells him. The soldier had been saying how much he wished Marion would go back into modeling full time....

 

He's glad to see that Jane's flight is running almost an hour late. It gives him time to catch his breath and get his cool guy mask in place before his lover (boyfriend? partner?) got home. It's a little silly he knows but he doesn't want Jane to see how happy he is that he's back alive and mostly well. Jane will just tell him to stop acting like a girl if he were to get emotional and do something like hug him. In public of all things.

 

Blackberry open, he takes advantage of this extra time to finish up a report and schedule an appointment with an agency suspected of suckering young women into dangerous life contracts so he can get in, stop it, and get out. He’s so taken by his screen he almost doesn’t hear the announcement that the plane is landing.

 

He scrambles to his feet and hastily joins in the salute that the other nearby soldiers gesture as the Captain-slash-war hero is wheeled through the door in a chair, his leg bound up in a big white cast scribbled on from end to end. He looks dashing in his uniform, if a little cranky, a big medal pinned to his jacket. He’s sitting up as straight and proud as he can for a man in a wheelchair.

 

When Jane sees Marion saluting him, his heart flutters. He’s about fifty feet away, forty feet, thirty. The ring box feels heavy in his pocket, it feels like it’s burning a hole in his pants and branding his skin. His hands shake as he looks Marion in the eyes – this is the man who he’s going to ask to marry him. The right time needs to come, he’ll wait, he can be patient, he can.

 

There’s no such thing as the right time. They don’t need Hallmark. They’ve never been a particularly floating-on-hearts pair anyway, spending half their time playfully arguing and making up without saying a word. The right time doesn’t exist. The soldier will wind up waiting for the rest of his life worried that a better time might be right around the corner.

 

The rest of the soldiers around him look startled when he pushes right up out of his chair and awkwardly limps forward the remaining fifteen feet. But nobody looks quite as stunned as Marion, who rushes forward with his arms out in case Jane stumbles.

 

He stands up as straight as he can and sets his jaw and looks up at the taller man. “It’s good to see you,” he says seriously, stiffly. His palms are sweating.

 

"It is good to see you too," Marion says, managing to keep his smile small. "It would be better if you stayed in your chair. I do not want you to fall."

 

Another soldier wheels over the chair Jane left behind and Marion nods his thanks.

 

"Sit down. You do not 'ave to be strong for me." he says.

 

“I don’t want to sit down,” the soldier lifts his chin higher. “I just spent the last eight hours sitting down, and I’m gonna spend a lot of the next five months sitting down while I recover. I want to stand now.”

 

His fists tighten, his knuckles pop, his heart pounds. He reaches forward and grabs Marion by his suit jacket sleeves and pulls him forward into a crushing hug, arms wrapped around his small waist so tightly he barely has room to breathe, and he presses his face into the taller man’s sweet-smelling lapel.

 

“I missed you, spook,” he mutters, hiding his red cheeks in the expensive material of his lover’s shirt.

 

Marion tenses a little before relaxing into Jane's tight embrace. He doesn't care about the looks they're getting. He's just glad to have his lover home.

 

With a smile he wraps his arms around the soldier's shoulders and squeezes as hard as he can, just so he knows the much stronger man will actually feel it.

 

"I missed you too."

 

The soldier eventually splutters and clears his throat and breaks the hug, pushing gently at the other man to get him to take a step back. He tries to step back too and almost falls over the chair that had been pushed up behind his knees.

 

“Move this, would you?” he barks and the chair is quickly pulled out from behind his legs. His cheeks are bright red but nobody dares to comment. “Give me some room to breathe! Not you,” he grabs onto the bottom of Marion’s suit coat when he started to take a step back too. “I need to – I mean, I gotta talk to you about something. Serious.”

 

"We 'ave all ze time in ze world." Marion assures him. He takes Jane's hand and gives it a squeeze. "But you need to rest your leg. Standing like zis is not good for you."

 

“I’m fine! All my weight is on my not broken leg,” the soldier barks. “I don’t want to wait to talk about it, I want to talk about it right now. It’s important.”

 

Marion shakes his head but can't help smiling. Jane is as stubborn as ever. He's glad. It finally makes him being home feel real. He hadn't believed it when he got the letter. But having Jane back, acting like he always did, makes it feel genuine.

 

"Alright. What is it?" he asks

 

“Uh,” the soldier clears his throat. He’s suddenly very aware of the amount of people around them. He looks down at his feet, but the sight the cast makes him uneasy so he looks up at the ceiling. “Well, see, I was thinking about – damn it.” He clears his throat again and his face feels so hot he’s afraid it will melt right off. Marion laughs a little and he looks up at the other man with a frown. “Let me start over!”

 

Marion laughs again and waves him on. "Of course of course. Whatever you want. Start again, please."

 

Jane shoves his hand into his pocket and closes it around the ring box, but then to keep it from looking suspicious he shoves his other hand in the opposite pocket to make it look intentional, but then he thinks it makes him look like a nervous child so he pulls them out and tucks the box discreetly in his jacket pocket instead.

 

“I was thinking about how long we’ve been together,” he says, starting out strong, but feeling his voice threaten to shake. “I mean, it’s been a long time. A lot longer than I ever thought you’d be able to put up with me! A lot longer.”

 

Marion's smile slips into a worried frown. This doesn't sound like the sort of conversation he wants to have in public. They've been apart a long time. A very long time. It's possible they've been apart too long and Jane has started to question their relationship.

 

Which is definitely not something he wants to talk about in an airport terminal.

 

"Jane now may not be ze time," he says quietly.

 

“I was thinking that too, but then I decided that now is the perfect time!” Jane says, voice strong. People are staring. “I was worried that I wouldn’t think of a perfect time or I wouldn’t know what to say but I don’t think there’s such a thing as perfect timing for this sort of thing, it’s always gonna be a big scary change. The longer I wait the more I’ll worry about it, so I just wanna get it out of the way right now.”

 

"Alright," Marion sighs. There's no helping it, it seems. Stubborn and bullheaded as ever. Marion will miss that.

 

“You made me lose my train of thought. Oh yeah, we’ve been together a long time. Well, I had a few minutes to think about stuff while I was standing on the mine so my team could clear the area, and it made me rethink our whole situation.”

 

Marion shrinks down a little bit.

 

“I think it’s amazing that you haven’t left me yet even though I know I’m too loud and annoying and you hate Americans anyway and you’re such a handsome filly but you’ve always been faithful and I don’t really get why but I’m sick of the constant fear that someone might tempt you! So I decided it might be a good idea to get the government involved so you can’t leave!”

 

“You… my- what?”

 

“I’d take a knee, but I don’t have one to spare,” he slaps the cast with his free hand and fishes the ring box out of his pocket and opens it, happy to find the sapphire still sitting upright. “Wanna do grown-up stuff with me like combine our taxes and healthcare?”

 

For a moment Marion thinks he might faint. But he doesn't because Jane would like that too much. His breath does catch in his throat for a moment when he sees the beautiful ring sitting in the small box.

 

He's not sure he believes it at first. He's waited years for Jane to ask and had started to think it would never happen. But here they are and there it is and everyone around them is staring, waiting for his answer.

 

"Imbécile," he says, reverting back to his French in shock. "Oui! Of course, oui!"

 

“Wee means yes!” Jane says proudly, butchering the pronunciation as always. In seven years he’s learned a few dozen words in French, but oui was the first. Marion had a penchant for shouting it in bed. The soldiers around him clap as he takes the other man’s hand and puts the ring on it, exhaling happily when it fits perfectly.

 

Marion pulls his hand away as soon as the ring is secure so he can throw his arms around Jane's shoulders and kiss him. He forgets about the man's bad leg though and in his excitement sends them both crashing to the floor.

 

Minor pain shoots up the soldier’s pelvis and settles in his lower back, but it’s nothing compared to being blown up by a landmine, and he’d sooner step on another one than break this kiss. His arms are tight around the Frenchman’s waist, and he waves off the approaching soldiers who advance to try and lift them off the floor.  


Marion kisses him like his life depends on it, refusing to pull away until he is so desperate to breathe his chest physically hurts. Even then he goes back for another quick peck on the lips before gingerly climbing off his fiancé and helping the other soldiers around them get him back on his feet.

 

"I don't know why you were so nervous. I 'ave been waiting for you to ask for two years." Marion teases when they're both on their feet again.

 

“Two whole years? You know you could’ve asked! Nobody stopped you from buying a ring Mr. 85-Thousand-Dollar-Salary!” Jane teases, and finally relents to be pushed back down into the chair because as embarrassing as it is, it’s still more dignified than hobbling out like he has a pool cue up his ass.

 

"You would not have said yes. You would have made a big fuss about ze man asking and how you are ze man in ze relationship." Marion teases right back. "And you do not wear rings."

 

“I coulda put it on a chain,” he mutters as the chair is handed over to Marion so he can push the man out of the terminal. “I woulda said yes. I woulda made a fuss but I woulda said yes. In fact I think you should still ask. To make it even!”

 

"Will you marry me, mon cher?" Marion asks, rolling his eyes. He can't help the grin that's plastered across his face. It might be permanent, he's not sure.

 

“You got yourself a deal!”


End file.
